Climategate ruling: FOIA requests cover backup servers too

A landmark FOIA ruling last week will have far-reaching consequences for how public servants interpret their Freedom of Information obligations. Specifically, public servants cannot delete local copies of a file on their PC and then use its absence as an excuse not to disclose the file – if a backup copy exists on the organisation’s systems. In other words: backup servers must be searched for FOIA requests.

The FOIA Tribunal heard the case last December and made its judgement last week. The case was brought by Dr Don Keiller, deputy head of Life Sciences at Ruskin University, Cambridge, against the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), the academics at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ scandals…

Cover-ups have been serious crimes since Watergate.
Nixon may or may not have known about the Watergate break-in beforehand, but he was run out of office because he LIED about it afterwards, and the lie was outed.
Clinton was impeached because he LIED about marital infidelity, and the lie was outed.
Iraq was invaded and Saddam caught and executed because he LIED about WMDs, and everyone believed him.
Lies will always come back to bite you from behind.